A Shot Through the Heart
by Maukey
Summary: "May Lord have pity on their souls," the murmur was softly carried on the stale breeze. Lars hang in there, I'm coming. / Netherlands/Canada set in World War II
1. Chapter 1

A Shot Through the Heart

The heavy scent of earth clogs my nose, my throat and showers down onto me like rain. Shaking, I shook it off as the thick mud drags me down as I inch forward on my stomach. All around, everything was a haze, quiet and misty sole for a high pitched ringing that grew in my ears. Incapable of focusing as everything seemed to duplicate itself and dance in my eye. A bright light flashes and I instinctively duck again, feeling sharp splinters and shards hit, tearing my hand and the small bit of exposed cheek like some hell-sent demon.

Sulphur laced the air, gun powder and smoke taints it. No fresh breeze but a warm and uncomfortable whisk. Blood, death, gangrene, and decay all made the air around me dense suffocating and drowning. A screech echoed as screams of pain cleared the buzzing as the merciless rattling of firearms rained down from both sides. Finally I had crawled to a large hole, sliding into it, boots finding stability on something soft that hissed. A foul stench crept up as I gag covering my mouth and nose, stepping away from the half decayed remains of what use to be a young male.

My hands groped the side of the large fissure, stepping around the body, my knees tremble weak and exhausted, ready to buckle. I refuse to think of the physical pain that burns through my veins, which thins my blood, quickens my heart, as it froze and lock my joints. A large explosion went off in the background shaking the earth and causing my body to fall. I finally my knees gave in to their will to buckle as sharp shards of metal projected all around. My body fell, before I could start to scale the wall of the hole, my head hitting against the side of the hole letting loose dirt powder my face.

"Help will come soon," I mutter as I lay here slumped, everything spinning and flashing as the edges of my vision was nothing but a sharp mist. "He will be here soon, he will be here soon," I groaned clenching my jaw as blood trickles from my cheek and my hand was nothing but a throbbing pain. Bringing it up in front of my face my eyes toke a while to focus on the seizuring mass of bloody flesh. My jaw locked as I scream through my teeth, trying to move each joint of my hand. Dread as I realized two of my fingers were barely there, just torn flesh hardly identifiable as my whole hand was gleaming a crimson.

I take a shaky breath, closing my eyes, hands going from my forehead and into my hair streaking it with my own blood as I pull it back from my face. My back pressed against the cold earth as a sob escapes my throat. I sat there for what felt like an eternity, shoulders heaving as I stare up hopelessly at the sky that lit up every so often from bright explosions. A deadly infatuation of beauty masking the unseen death that lurks across the earth and sails the wind.

I lick my chapped lips, tasting the metallic blood, dried over the dirt and salt of perspiration. Taking a deep breath, resting one hand on the wall and the other on my knee, I got up stepping around the body, pausing only to make sure that I still was in possession of my gun, before starting to scale back up. I didn't have any time to react as I was blown back into the hole from a blast, dirt collapsing and raining down, filling my open mouth drowning my scream of pain. My eyes burn, my face warm as the dirt stuck to it, as I lay there stunned drowning in the earth's embrace.

"He's not coming," the thoughts echo in my mind, everything once more a fuzzy white as more dirt fell on me like sand in an hour glass. Laying there, I wanted to give up, to let the land I was, I love, I protect, bury me under her weight. To sleep, to dream. To believe those words that circulated in my mind that he will never come back, not with help. Who would ever come back to this?

Suffocating, I only just realized as the panic claws at my throat, my body's reaction to the lack of much needed oxygen. Pain burning as I summon the last of my strength, clawing the dirt away. Air. Choking and sputtering, spitting out the soil as I gasp in the heavy stench of decay and sulphur, burning its way down through my lungs but air none the less. Blindly I paw at the mist, climbing out of my grave and running my hand down the side of the hole, praying that it was the side leading back to my trench and not the Germans. Agonizing minutes as I blindly dug the toes of my boots into the soft wall of the hole climbing up. Once out, I took a few steps before hearing the shots as a bullet grazed my shoulder making me drop to my stomach by instincts. I blink feverously as I desperately try to make the fog disappear, trying to ignore the screams as men of all ages, all nationalities were slaughtered. Echoes of those in agony, limbs blown off as finally they are quieted by a shot. Cries of those who's bowels have spilt out scream for mercy in the shape of morphine as they lay in a pool of their own blood. I already know that pale frail bodies would be convulsing perhaps foaming blood from their mouths before She, the lady Mercy, takes them away from this. Boys, not men, fresh from schools shook and tremble, broken, muttering and yelling for their mothers. Slaughter. This was not fighting. This was slaughter, the truth of war. No glory. No true winners, only slaughter. I hear the Dutch, voices frenzied as more explosions praying for the barrage of my side. My joints screamed for rest as I cover my head from more rubble from the heavy artillery that rain all around, hitting their marks into the many scapegoats that Netherlands and other Allied Countries may have sent to this doomed stretch of land. As more and more men fell like leaves in the autumn, staining the ground reds with speckles of brown from their uniforms.

Finally the mist was beginning to clear as I inch myself forwards as planes whirl, buzzing over head. Limited vision cripples me more than my hand or my shoulder, my good hand moving to rubbed dirt away from my eyes, hardly able to feel the moistened skin from the burn that varnish my face from the dry and charred fingertips. I crawled behind the rock with much difficulty where two young men shivered with hands over their heads, helmets thrown off from their panic. I couldn't help but look over at them in an attempt to see what they once were. Perhaps these two boys were their school's star football players. Perhaps one wrote poetry, soothing those with tender words of love. The other was maybe the jokester of the class, making others laugh with ease. Now look at them, beaten and broken, infected and striped of all that they were worth. The ones that never will survive this. Even if they were to walk away, they would never fit into society after this. They will forever be the broken, the lost ones, haunting the earth. The poet saddened, depressed, creating heart wrenching pieces, no longer tempests of love and passion, swallowing pill after pill in an endless cycle like the waves of an ocean forever in storm. The jokester no longer capable of smiling, life wasted away by the liquid in the bottle. Frowning and yelling, a soon to be broken mess behind closed doors. Tossing from the hounds that plagues his thoughts when the lights go out. Ones doomed to be lost. And will I too be like them? Going on in life with the burden of living for the rest of time thinking of **this** moment when I'm alone at night for a few more decades to come. Forced to find happiness and move on in coming years once this hell ends, not for myself but for my people?

I grab the helmet nearest putting it on one of the boy's head as I scrambled for the other.  
"They'll come and we'll be able to retreat. Keep your head on your shoulders," my voice was hardly audible, coarse and cracking in my throat as I look into their wide and frightened eyes, as they darted like a scared mouse. I quickly unclasp the canister on my belt, screwing the cork off before downing a quick gulp of the alcohol, letting it burn my raw throat and calming my shaking hand, passing the so called liquid courage to each the boys before closing it and again clasping it onto my belt. I had already lead so many to their death that a part of me feels obligated to at least get these two back from the front and to our own trenches. To save others for my own selfish reasons.

I took a deep breath peering past the rock that shelters us just slightly, fingers running down the calibre of my Dutch Mannlicher, hearing the familiar click as the safety was unlocked and the first of the bullets loaded. I have five shots in the clip, six altogether. The German's MP40s and large amounts of light machine guns which easily outgunned our rifleman, slaughtering most before they can even make it several feet away from our trenches. The luckier ones, more doomed if anything, like myself, would get much deeper. To "safety" and be stuck there, hoping for the barrage from our side so they could retreat, or be killed or worse, injured where no one would be capable of getting to you. Where you would scream and moan through the night. Plaguing your fellow brothers in the darkness until finally you grow silent, dying alone. Checking back to the two boys I spat to the ground getting the dirt out of my teeth.

"When I start shooting," I commanded in Dutch, just realizing that I was speaking as I attract the two boy's attention, "you two need to make your way over to the rock up behind us closer to our trench." They nodded as I peek over the rock locating the gunmen and started shooting. One shot, miss, but enough to make the advancing soldier duck. The second shot was a hit to the left arm, nothing too serious though. I curse squinting an eye in concentration as the rifle trembled in my hands. Third, fourth, fifth, sixth, hit, hit, hit, miss. Empty. Jumping from behind the rock I quickly retreated, boots kicking up the uneven ground.

"Don't get shot, don't get shot. You have to stay alive. Just a bit longer, he'll come. He'll show up. He promised. And when he gets here the Germans will be forced to retreat. Just hold in a little longer Lars. Just a little bit longer." The words raced in my mind as I flinch every now and then at the sound of shots that were carried to me by the wind from afar. The dread of being sniped every second they are exposed was enough to keep any a man running quickly for cover. Then, suddenly there was a searing pain as a loud shot rang out. 


	2. Chapter 2

Salt spray foamed up around me, licking and dampening my now long and unruly blond hair. A part of me felt that if any of my "parents" or siblings were to see me now they wouldn't help but feel a fledgling of grief even if they were all experiencing the same trauma. We all were here. Whether it's somewhere far, humid and unbearingly hot, flying high through the skies, on a larger boat, evacuating their city, they were all experiencing it.

The boat rocks spraying more of the freezing ocean as I clutch the rifle. How were Oz and Will doing? Have they been slaughtered, the carrion birds circling high over their bodies as the sun above baked them? Perhaps Alfred was shot down, spiraling down in smoke and flames unconscious or trapped in the cockpit of the plummeting iron and steel contraption. Was Arthur's ship sinking, the red alarm wailing as water filled the hull from a torpedo or mine hitting it? Did Francis manage to evacuate and send his people to safety or are they enslaved and trapped. And what of Connor, Brian and Ian, all scattered in the trenches in different squadrons, are they too dead? And Sion, picked off easily like most medics who are too busy caring for the wounded then for themselves. I swallowed feeling a lump in my throat from the thoughts before quickly pushing them to the back of my mind.

Was Lars ok? I remember retreating; promising him that I would be back with more men but how long ago was that? Weeks, he couldn't possibly still be alive, yet I knew if anyone could do it, it would be him. My hand felt in my coat, feeling the warm metal as I start playing with it in my fingers. The small silver cross gave me a momentary numbness of relief as I breathed. Smoke was present in the air, lofting about in lazy haze off the waters as I knew we would soon dock as close to the battle as we dared get. We were safe, as safe as one could be in war. But there was a heavy cloud of dread that I could feel hanging over the men and myself. We would soon fight. But what if the Dutch panic, believing us to be Germans or Austrians, some other force that stood against them and fired at us. That was always a possibility, especially in war.

Each second, minute of advancement brought the sounds of hell closer. Rattles, whistling like Arthur's teapot that screamed on the element, dazzling and stunning lights flashing and causing spots in your vision if looked at even from a distance. Like the fairies that Arthur would tell Alfred and I about when we were young kids, dancing in the early twilight hours in fields of golden flowers invisible to most eyes. He would tell us of how they would twirl and sparkle in the night sky. Was it night now, through the heavy clouds of smoke? Shaking my head, I desperately try to clear out those thoughts of my blissful innocence in the mixed up rumble that were my minds thoughts.

Louder rattling, louder hissing and whirring. Blasting and bangs with the low rumbling like thunder followed by the screaming of metal banshees shrieking as guns went off one last time before an unsettling silence looms over the land. The boat lurched getting stuck in the bog as the water hardly moved. My boots sunk in the mud, filling my boot and dampening my socks. Each step was slow through the heavy mire as I adjust my rifle that was slung over my shoulder. Everything that I did, that any man behind me did sounds loud enough to even wake the dead. Every step, a deafening, heart stopping sound in the silence. The mist, fog, haze, whatever one would wish to call it, was so thick it can be cut through with a butter knife, as it curls around stumps and branches that juts from the earth, cloaking everything in its blood chilling stillness. It pumps ice into every man's veins as it hide danger, cloaks familiarity capable of making friends think friends are enemies, even tricking our feeble darting eyes into thinking there's something there when there's not. At each step our rifles hit our backs with softened thumps against the fabric that stuck, dampened, to our backs in a creased fashion. A boy, too small for his boots fell with such a clatter that I had to refrain from pulling out a pistol, dreading that if anyone would pull the trigger the silence would end as each side once more fires at one another.

The boy scrapped and covered in muck got up on wobbly legs as he stifled a cough in the sleeve of his coat. His eyes alive with fear as he wiped the mud from his face with his overly large sleeve revealing the small pale freckle dotted face of a kid, who probably lied about his age to the officials or snuck off to the war for some unknown reason. Most men trembled knowing their fate, even I trembled walking on in front of the men swatting at a bug. The Dutch should be close or at least what's left of them should be.

"May lord of have pity on their souls," the murmur was softly carried on the stale breeze. Lars hang in there, I'm coming.

"And may God be with us." I said turning to the men adjusting my dirty glasses.

"Amen."


	3. Chapter 3

****AN: Hey guys. Sorry if it takes me forever for the next few chapters. I need to write and correct myself since I don't really have a Beta or anything and my former corrector is hard to get a hold of when I need her :(. Anyways, I really don't know if I should even continue this story anymore. It's so much work. But if I do I'll write more after the 9th of this month. ** **

The world around me crashes. I'm falling aren't I. The grey sky bled out into brown, then changes to white as sparks fly in my mind's vision before black, bleak like my hope that was slowly dying. So beautiful the blackness, so peaceful. It was enough to tempt me to stillness, to give up the urge to fight and move. Weakly I try to urge my finger to budge, that desire long since left my body to even keep trying anymore. Everything was so unwelcoming around me. Rest, peaceful blackness…..

"Lars, Lars," echoes float, bouncing in the darkness suddenly.

"Here let me get you some nice warm waffles. I'm sure I can scavenge up some flour….Lars….," a voice so soft and gentle, warm and happy, a sharp contrast from the voices of war. A figure slowly starts appearing, dissolving out of the whiteness taking the shape of a girl, a happy cat like grin on her face as she tilts her head a bit to the side. A beautiful red ribbon clearly visible in her clean dirty blonde hair as some unseen breeze played with her dress just slightly, rippling through the fabric as she stood there still, only a arms length away from me.

"Maybe there are some fresh strawberries too," the voice hums as the girl giggles, closing her eyes as the giggle resonances all around.

"Here Lars eat up, there's not much food left anywhere…I'm sorry if this isn't a whole lot…" The girl's expression quickly changes to something more pained as tears begin to well in her eyes.

"Brother, is something wrong? No, no I'm fine see," tears rim the girl's eyes as she looks to be in severe pain, trying to mask it with a smile. Her clothes, once nice began to show signs of scratches, the colours fading just slightly. Her whole small frail frame began to tremble in front of my eyes, am I delirious?

"See perfectly fine….fine…." She coughs and looks at her hands, as blood drips from her open palms. Her clothes were now brown, soiled with the edges burned and torn, and the red ribbon faded slightly as ashes starts to fall all around her like snow.

"Brother don't leave me….I'm so cold….let me help and fight…." She coughs more violently falling to her knees as her whole body shivers and convulses, shoulders heaving. It pains me to see her hair in such tangles, to see such a dead shell of the woman she once was. Slowly like the movement was enough to make the fire of pain course through her veins and intensify she looks up at me. My heart clawed at my throat as I look into her sorrowful green eyes, almost ashamed that I had left her in such a state that I had. I had to. I had to protect her. Protect myself and my people. To fight back these cruel devils who advanced through her lands to me. Cutting down and fighting in the lands that my sister represented. My little sister. Slowly she reaches a hand out towards me, shaking as her palm faces up stained from blood. Red embers fall from the sky lighting the place around her ablaze as flames grew and danced dangerously close to her socks. Licking at her clothing like hungry wolves, circling her body like a ewe who's mother had fled, her eyes filled with such a remorseful look and pained expression as her gaze locked mine.

"Brother, where are you. You said you will come back to help me. Where are you…." I can't take anymore as I reach out my gloved hand to her hand, hoping to help and to set my soul free from such torturous visions. She blinks as pearls fall from her eyes, dropping to the ground as she fades into dust the moment my hand was to touch hers. The red ribbon falling to the ground and into my hands as the dust was carried away, far from me; my dearest sister, my dearest Belle was far from me. And finally it too crumbles and dissolves as if it never was there. As if my sister never did exist.

"I need you….get up…..wake up…..I need you."

I open my eyes with a start, exhaling and inhaling sharply as I scramble off the ground and onto my feet running forwards as if pulled by strings to the rock, quickly sliding around it as a bullet whirs by. My breath is broken shallow heaves as my lungs burn and my heart races. Dabbing my forehead dry of the cold sweat I notice the two boys that I had helped earlier come to my side, one looking worried as the other took out a small roll of bandages from his pocket. Looking down I realize the blood that had already soaked its way through my pants as one of the boys bandaged the bullet wound in my leg tightly, fumbling at first due to shaking hands before going and wrapping my one hand up at a quicker pace. My stomach lurches, as a sudden wave of nausea hits and my lips quiver. My body feels weak and pale, frail from blood lost as it just comes into awareness of its state. The other boy, unclasps his canister and brought it to my lips, tilting it and letting the warm water pour into my mouth and down my neck as I drank a few gulps. I could hardly hear the words that left their lips. Comforting words none the less, perhaps a thank you here and there. We rest there as the two boys flinch and duck as bomb shells went off, lighting the sky again as rattling of more machine guns roars before going suddenly quiet, both sides hardly daring to shoot suddenly. A pause in fire? Was it to fetch the wounded, or perhaps just each side waiting for the other's move in this deadly game of chess where each turn meant more lives lost? All at the cost of some men at their desk deciding that war is inevitable? Why was war not just two men against one? Why did they send their countries sons to fight for their cause, to back their words and their lies up?

I look up to the heavens and count down. "Tien," smoke whirls around, heavy and black like the breath of Hades slithering close to the ground. "Negen," a stagnant breeze ridden with dust dances around wickedly pushing dirt into the trenches. "Acht," fine sand particles cling to my eyelashes making me blink quickly and tear up on occasion. "Zeven," tears roll down my cheeks dropping from my chin making small dark droplets on the ground . "Zes," the smoke clears and the breeze stops as it felt like Time itself froze. "Vijf," the boys had finished bandaging the wound and were now looking down at me. "Vier," there was no movement as far as I can see and hear from either sides. "Drie," I shift putting one foot on the ground and resting my weight on the other knee that was placed on the ground. "Twee," the boys seem to finally understand what I was doing and mirrored my actions. "Een," my heart began to race as my slow countdown finally reached its end. "Null," ten whole seconds passed with no events as I lung up taking the chance and running back to the side, my leg hardly able to support me. I can feel the moistened bandaging dampening my pant leg at each step as a pounding pain took beat with each limping step I take. Suddenly I feel the support of the one of the two boys as he takes the weight and supports my step. Our bodies were tense as we waited for the shooting to ring and cut us down but it never came as we retreated. The other boy mutters to me how the Germans were reassembling as they drag their men back for treatment. At least the men close enough to their trench as I can imagine no German wanting to step too far from the trench line.

Finally we slide into the familiar trench to be greeted by many a face, hands pushing the boys and I away from the netted walls with ladders that decorated every few feet. Each step we take took us through the winding labyrinth that cracked the earth. Past what little remains of our once stocked reserves of food and artillery. Each step causing rats to scurry in every direction, one of the many things that plagues the trenches, gnawing on our food and clothing. The damn beasts were fat off their feast of dead flesh of the fallen comrades that litter the area. And still they would devour our little preserves the greedy sons of bitches. They thrive while we starve. Even in war it was survival of the fittest. I pass by a group of men who were using the moldy parts of their bread to lure the rats before using their pistols or revolvers to club the beasts, flinging the limp corpse to be disposed of later not bothering to waste a bullet on such scum. Other men, pale and weak had no visible injuries yet lay there in worse condition then I. Hacking with such a dry cough, they groan. One rubs his back, another seems limp like his joints were aching. Suddenly he slouches to his side, heaving and vomiting before sitting back up and looking around in a stupor. A third who seems worried for the two scratches at his head, frowning as a hand touches a man's forehead as he shakes his head defeated, taking off his helmet. I feel my own hand reach up to my hair and scratch my scalp suddenly remembering the little pricks of itches that I've gotten just weeks after coming here. Infected like all here. Damn lice.

The two boys and I are pushed towards a larger area with a tarp protecting it from any debris that would rain down. Moans and groans, delirious chattering and screams came from the tented area where the sick were to stay for their final moments. Where the cots were few and dirty. No doubt covered in God knows what, maybe wrapped in plastic if one was lucky, but no doubt crawling with lice like this whole fucking trench. Disgusting, damned, hellhole of a trench.

"Gewonden, gewonden," one of the boys repeats out loud pushing me to the tented area as more soldiers moved by and out of our way. A few pat my back, a few nod in my direction as I was pushed closer and closer, all clearly knowing what I did, yet they seemed unaware of the selfish reasoning behind the actions. I was a hero to them. Yet I don't feel like any damn hero that children would dream up in their imagination. I'm not the hero they put me as. I feel a squeeze on my shoulder as I saw one of the two boys mouth "dankzij" before he disappears around the corner deeper in the trench. I pray for the best for him hoping that my words could somehow reach this so called "God" I am told exists and once believed in. Yet years of this makes one believe that He is only a figment. Either that or he doesn't help the damned like myself. Like my sister.

A man stood there up front to greet me, shooing away anyone else. I studied his face, taking in every small detail. A white mask over his face, dirty glasses resting on the crooked bridge of his nose, its wire bent oddly. A white smock, or what use to be white, now is a grey thanks to the filth and a burgundy thanks to the dried blood stains. He roughly grabs my chin and lift it from side to side examining me with his tired bloodshot eyes, who saw death more than one should in their whole lifetime in little but a day. He touches my cuts along my cheek, held up my hand to see the poor bandaging job that the young boy did before crouching, knees popping, to see my leg. He lets out a sound of exhaustion pulling out a pair of rusted scissors from his pocket and began cutting at the fabric of my pant leg to see the wound. I scream as the rusted blade grazes the wound, cutting through the bandaging along with the fabric. Clenching my hands feeling the pulsating pain for everything as a needle is jabbed into my leg. It takes few seconds before the fiery pain is ended sharply and I'm left feeling light headed. I am brought deeper into the tent where I can only pray that the morphine lasts long enough for my wounds to be crudely cleaned and bandaged again, the whole while my eyes began scanning for any sign of him, of his men, anything but to no avail. He wasn't here. And he wasn't going to come. I should face the facts.


End file.
